Monday, April 23, 2012

Luís de Camões Tomb

"Luís Vaz de Camões (1524–1580) is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work The Lusiads. (...) Written in Homeric fashion, the poem focuses mainly on a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese voyages of discovery during the 15th and 16th centuries." (Wikipedia)
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This post is linked to Taphophile Tragics

I still have at hand my copy of Os Lusíadas (Biblioteca Ulisseia de autores Portugueses), which I managed to read with the help of an English version.He was a great poet with a great story to tell and he was able to create successfully an epic inspired to real history, but in a magnificent world on his own.

What a super shot for this theme, JM! I find these memorials to the dead to be rather grotesque, but from your description of his talents and work, perhaps he is deserving of posthumous adoration...

Re your question on Cedar Key: I'd guess you're right that this is a juvenile pelican. At the same time, though, this is representative of the Brown Pelican which has been brought back from the brink of extinction in Florida over the past 20-30 years.

@VP: I haven't had time yet to give Julie a proper answer to her request so, thank you so much for this. However, and maybe because portuguese is my mother language, I think the english version is much less poetic, especially in the last sentence, which is not a translation, actually. Translating Luís de Camões is not an easy task. At all! Even if my english was great I would never dare doing it. :-)

JM - You are absolutely right! I found that translation on Wikiquote and just thought that it was better than no translation at all...By the way, that quote is relatively understandable for an Italian even with a poor knowledge of written Portuguese, which doesn't happen often with your language.

Despite being born and raised in Europe, I am woefully ignorant of many of its great poets and writers, Luís Vaz de Camões included. I like the sentiment of the poem Rob posted, even if the translation does not do it justice, so thanks to VP. This is an ornate tomb to memorialize him. And your photos, as usual, José, are superb.